What to specialize in as Necro and why?

More mana efficient sure, but lifetap more dps not only by itself ( plus due to resists which neuro gets quite often ) but also due to being easier to weave between DoT recasts. vs neuro's longer cast time. i am curious enough to go parse it out on test over a long period of time, but im willing to bet more often than not lifetap is the better dps spell to use over Neuro.

I went on to test with a lvl 65 dummy. I kept on all focuses except for increased damage ones. Using increased damage focuses would create too many variables considering they can hit for 1-30/35%. I think we can both agree though that increased damage on Neurotoxin would be more beneficial than it would on Touch of Mujaki. 35% magic damage focus can increase Touch of Mujaki for a max of 306.25 dmg, where as 30% damage increase to Neurotoxin can increase damage for a max of 397.5.

Here are the averages of all the test runs I did.

Using only Touch of Mujaki in 1 minute 258 dps. In 2 minutes 272 dps. In 3 minutes 264 dps.
Using only Neurotoxin in 1 minute 343 dps. In 2 minutes 325 dps. In 3 minutes 306 dps.

Keeping up highest DPS DoT chain + chain nuking Touch of Mujaki (average over many attempts, stopped because they kept consistent results)

1 Min: 511 dps
2 Min: 596 dps
3 Min: 614 dps
Ran out of mana every time around the 3 minute mark while mounted and lich on, no bard regen song.

Keeping up highest DPS DoT chain + chain nuking Neurotoxin (average over many attempts, stopped again because they kept consistent results)

1 Min: 596 dps
2 Min: 653 dps
3 Min: 651 dps
4 Min: 647 dps
Still had about 20% mana left at the 4 minute mark.

During my testing I had 0 Mujaki resists and 6 Neurotoxin resists, even with resists Neurotoxin was still higher dps. Neurotoxin crits for 2650 extra dmg, where as Mujaki only crits for 1750 extra dmg.
Also, buffs like Blessing of Reverence and Rizlona's (which I didnt use) would be more beneficial to Neurotoxin than it would be Touch of Mujaki, further widening the gap.

I play on Agnarr

Actually those % increases make a big very difference. Especially since in LDON you can get a 40% increase to magic DD aug whereas you can only get up to 30% increase to poison DD spells. If you're argument is that Neuro (1325 * 0.3) 397.5 would be adding more damage than Mujaki (875 * 0.4) 350, that's not correct because you're not taking the spell cast times into consideration. Neuro has almost double the cast time of Mujaki which means to make a fair comparison you'd have to add 397.5 for Neuro and (350 * 1.9) 665 for Mujaki.

Taking % damage increase into consideration with Neuro vs Mujaki, you have the following:


................Cast Time.. Base Dmg ...Dmg Increase ...Overall Dmg Per ....DPS
Mujaki........... 3.2 ...........875................ 1.4 .....................1225 .............382.81
Neurotoxin...... 6 ...........1325............... 1.3 .....................1722.5 ..........287.08


The only meaningful things not taken into consideration with that above DPS number are crits, resists and mana efficency. (% spell haste effects each spell the same.)

As for crits, they should occur the same number of times per cast for each of those spells. But what about the damage? You said, "Neurotoxin crits for 2650 extra dmg, where as Mujaki only crits for 1750 extra dmg." But again those numbers actually favor Mujaki because you forgot to take cast time into consideration. So again, a more equal comparison would be closer to Neuro critting for 2650 extra damage per crit vs Mujaki doing an extra (1750 * 1.9) 3325 per crit because you crit almost twice as often due to the faster cast time.

Resists are easily in favor of Mujaki.

Mana efficency is in favor of Neuro. Although in the last few expansions (Phinny), the only raid encounters where I run out of mana using Mujaki are bosses with mana leaching spells/abilities (that actually land with 500 resist to all) so it's rarely an issue.

I would specialize in Dispel Magic. Follow around enchanters and chain cast Dispel on their pet. That seems to be what every POS necro I encounter does

You are not accounting for the 1.5 second spell bar lockout after each cast. Because of the 1.5 second spell bar lockout, it doesn't translate in to Mujaki being cast twice as many times as Neurotoxin. Also % spell haste does not effect each spell the same. It takes 2 seconds off Neuro and only 1.1 second off Mujaki.

I parsed out chain nuking with lifetap + dot chain using increased damage focus, vs chain nuking with neuro + dot chain WITHOUT increased damage focus, and lifetap only barely won.

The whole point is though that you will not achieve a higher over all DPS by going Mujaki over Neurotoxin. It takes only TWO minutes with a 10k mana pool to run oom going full burn mode with Mujaki + Dots where as you can use the highest DPS dot chain + chain nuke with neurotoxin for 4x longer.

You say in the last few expansions you don't run oom using life taps. That means there are only two possibilities. You are either only using LT nukes every once in a while or you're using some extended dot chain allowing you to barely nuke in the first place, both of which would significantly decrease your DPS. The other possibility being some how your guild managed to find a way to kill Luclin/PoP raid mobs in under 2 minutes. You would need like 17k raid dps to kill a VT mob in 2 minutes.

I suggest you go back and look at your parses because I think you are having false memories of 120 second fights. The average kill time for P4+ Time bosses is around 4 to 8 minutes depending on how few people you bring in. Both OGC and AoS only ran about 18-26 people per split with about 40-45 toons in the raid and these were the average kill times. I went along on other guilds raids who had 50-70 people in the raid and they were taking sometimes over 10 minutes to kill.

You are correct that the DPS calculation chart did not take the 1.5 GCD into consideration. I can easily add that in though.

Also, you misunderstood what I meant when I said that % spell haste effects each spell the same. I was referring to the same % of time was taken off each spell. But just to further clarify, lets just take the Cleric Reverence buff into consideration with these numbers. With just that buff effecting our spell haste, Mujaki goes from 3.2 -> 2.4 (0.8 difference) and Neuro goes from 6 -> 4.5 (1.5 difference). 0.8/2.4 = 0.25 and 1.5/6 = 0.25; so both spells get a 25% cast time reduction. That's what I was referring to when I it effects each one the same.

Not sure why a 10% spell hast buff gave a 25% reduction, but cest la vie. Even with every combination of the Reverence buff and my decreased cast time bracer (just buff, buff and bracer, just bracer), which is a 15% reduction to all spells, it always showed 2.4 and 4.5.

But those different numbers do effect the overall DPS so lets put those new numbers back into my original chart. The new cast times being 2.4 and 4.5 and adding in the 1.5 GCD to each.

........Cast Time..Base Damage..Dmg Increase..Overall Dmg...DPS
Mujaki.... 3.9............875.................... 1.4 ................1225...... 314.10
Neuro.......6.............1325................... 1.3 ..............1722.5..... 287.08

So the chart is now taking spell haste and GCD into consideration but still doesn't show crits, resists and mana efficiency.

As far as crits go, you had previously said, "Neurotoxin crits for 2650 extra dmg, where as Mujaki only crits for 1750 extra dmg" and I had used a cast speed modifier to more accurately describe what was really going on. I used a 1.9 factor for the original cast time difference (6 vs 3.2) but now lets try the new one since we're using new cast times. 6/3.9 = 1.54. So Neuro crits would still add 2650 while Mujaki adjusted crits would now be 2695 (1750 * 1.54). So crits are still slightly in favor of Mujaki but not by as much as before.

And of course resists still highly favor Mujaki while mana efficiency still highly favors Neuro.

I'm not trying to argue that spamming Mujaki isn't going to run you out of mana faster. That's obvious and I've yielded that fact from the very beginning. The point I'm trying to make is that while you have mana, which in my experience is most of the time, Mujaki is better DPS. I'm not looking to get into rotations or being able to reapply dots more quickly when they fall off or movement or other responsibilities Necros might have during fights to prevent them from just spamming because that just creates way to many variables and we'd be here discussing it forever.

You need to learn to quote.

1. was replying to the guy that literally posted right above that quote. 2. you are not adding anything substantial to the conversation with this kinda post.

Neurotoxin is alteration.

I'm doing it for the good of the community from this point forward. You're welcome.

It really should be common sense that Lifetap will be top DPS when you add in the need to keep your DOTs stacked on the mob. Adding in Horror and Imprecation to the rotation in LDoN simply makes my point that much more. Sorry Atabishi, you are talking about Both DD's in a vacuum and that simply will NEVER happen. Casting Nuero while keeping your DoT rotation intact is not effective anymore.

As far as lower levels, ALWAYS spec alteration, ALWAYS. You want to make sure you are saving mana on your lifetap and lifetap over time. The lifetap over time is the most expensive spell you have and, as such, nets you the most savings in mana. Lifetap is your "two birds with one stone" ability. It DEFINES a necromancer. Adding in the fire dots just takes you further down to road to the Alteration Spec.

Since when can you not cast neuro between dot rotations? Neuro is a 4 sec cast time for me. I can cast on average 3-5 neuro's between having to reapply a dot. It's 4-7 for life taps. The whole point is, you can't keep a consistent DPS going by using life tap as your main nuke. You want to be non-stop casting for the entire fight. Life tap nuking will just run you oom before the fight is over. Also, neuro is alteration so we weren't talking about neuro vs life tap in terms of which you should spec.

The OP was asking for agnarr, which is currently in classic....OP just go conjuration for classic and respec later. Stop listening to these junior noob necro's who get destroyed on the daily but think they are playing correctly.

Yes, I agree with Atabishi, Stop listening to him as he is the junior necro here